How Level Two Chimney Wakefield Was Born in Wakefield
It was late fall in Wakefield, 2017. Corrine Halstead was standing in a driveway on Main Street, watching a homeowner argue with a chimney sweep who had just finished what he called an “inspection.” The sweep had stuck a flashlight up the flue, declared everything fine, and handed over a bill for $89. The homeowner, a woman who had just bought her first house, asked why her fireplace still smelled like a wet campfire every time it rained. The sweep shrugged. He never put a camera down. He never looked.
Corrine had been working with Level Two Chimney Co. for years at that point, running camera inspections as standard, archiving the footage, building the documented record that became Clause 4 of the Haven Standard. She knew what a real Level 2 inspection looked like. She also knew that Wakefield, with its dense neighborhoods of pre-war colonials and split-levels from the 60s and 70s, had flues that were deteriorating in patterns you could only see from inside. The clay liners in this part of Essex County were failing at joints that a flashlight would never reach. Homeowners were being told they were fine until they weren’t, until smoke started backing up into a nursery or a spark found a gap and lit the framing.
That afternoon, Corrine called the parent company and said: let me open the Wakefield branch. Not because the market was empty, but because it was full of the wrong kind of service. She promised to run it differently. Every customer gets the price in writing before anyone touches a ladder. Every inspection gets a camera. Every finding gets a photo they can see for themselves. No surprises, no door upsell, no “while we’re in here.” That was the deal. That’s still the deal.
Corrine Halstead’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Corrine didn’t stumble into this work. She was pulled into it by the particular satisfaction of seeing something hidden and making it visible.
She started in 2009, the same year Level Two Chimney Co. was founded, though she didn’t join until later. The first time she watched a camera feed crawl up a flue, she was in a crawlspace in Reading, kneeling on a concrete pad that smelled like old ash and mouse droppings. The monitor showed her a thimble joint that had cracked clean through, a gap wide enough to slide a pencil into. The homeowner above them was making coffee, unaware that every fire they’d lit that winter had been exhausting carbon monoxide into their wall cavity. The technician she was shadowing stopped the camera, saved the frame, and said: “This is why we look.”
That feeling, the one that comes from translating the invisible into evidence a homeowner can hold in their hand, is what still gets Corrine out of bed. She’s been doing this for over ten years now, and the work hasn’t become routine because the houses keep surprising her. The way Wakefield’s freeze-thaw cycles open hairline cracks in liner clay. The way a squirrel nest in a Peabody cap can completely block a flue that looked clear from the roofline. The particular smell of creosote glazing, like asphalt and old bacon, that tells her a fireplace has been burning wet wood all season.
If she weren’t doing this, she’d probably be in some other trade where the evidence matters more than the pitch. Home inspection, maybe, or forensic building pathology. Something where you have to prove what you claim. She likes the physicality of chimney work, the ladder carry, the roof walk, the way a brush sounds different in a lined flue versus an unlined one. She likes that her hands know things her mouth would struggle to explain.
What this work means to her personally is simple: she doesn’t believe anyone should have to take a stranger’s word about the safety of their own home. The camera, the written report, the archived footage, these are tools of translation. They turn a technician’s claim into a homeowner’s knowledge. That’s the whole point.
Meet Corrine Halstead - The Person Behind Every Job
Corrine Halstead is the Owner and Founder of Level Two Chimney Wakefield. She holds state licensure and has built her training through years of fieldwork across Essex and Middlesex counties, specializing in Level 2 camera inspections, flue liner evaluation, and creosote remediation protocols.
What separates Corrine from a corporate franchise technician is that she still carries the camera herself on complex jobs, still reviews the footage before any recommendation goes to a customer, and still answers the phone when the local coordinator patches through a question that needs an owner’s eye. She is not managing from an office. She is managing from rooftops and crawlspaces, and that distinction matters to the homeowners who hire her.
Outside of work, Corrine maintains a small vegetable garden behind her Wakefield home, a hobby that has taught her more about seasonal timing and patient observation than any business book. She believes the same principle applies to chimneys: you don’t force a fix before its season, and you don’t ignore a problem once it’s ripe.
Her personal commitment to every customer is direct: if she wouldn’t sign her own name to the recommendation, she won’t ask you to sign a check for it.
Before
AfterOur Promise to Wakefield Homeowners
Our values are not abstract. They are policies with dates and signatures attached.
Honest pricing. Clause 1 of the Haven Standard requires a flat price, written scope, and written warranty before anyone starts. We name our price range on the page, in dollars, because a customer who has to call to learn what something costs is a customer being screened for what they can pay. Our standard sweep and Level 2 inspection in Wakefield runs $249-$389 depending on flue count and roof access. The price you are quoted is the price you pay. No “while we’re in here” additions.
Quality parts. When a liner replacement or repair is necessary, we specify the materials by manufacturer. We have installed Gelco and Olympia Chimney stainless steel liners in Wakefield homes where the original clay has failed, and we use Famco and Copperfield caps and dampers where the application calls for them. You receive the part names in your written report, not vague descriptions.
Standing behind every job. The Haven Standard applies. Every chimney job is quoted in writing before it starts and leaves a documented record when we left. The archive is why we could prove a liner had failed before a fire rather than after. That archive is your protection too.
Our Credentials
Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires. Specifically:
- State-licensed chimney contractor status
- Insured and bonded for residential work in Massachusetts
- Years of local experience across Essex and Middlesex counties
- Strong local reputation built through documented work and verifiable customer records
These credentials matter because a chimney technician works inside your home’s structural envelope, on your roof, and with combustion systems that can kill if mishandled. Licensing means accountability to a state board. Insurance means protection if something goes wrong. Bonding means there is recourse beyond a negative review. When you hire someone to work on the system that vents your fireplace, your furnace, or your water heater, you are trusting them with more than masonry. You are trusting them with the air your family breathes.
The Haven Standard adds a layer above these baseline requirements: verified crews, background-checked, with license numbers on the page; evidence on every job; and no surprises in the final bill.
Rooted in Wakefield
This branch serves Wakefield and the surrounding towns where Corrine has spent her working life: Reading, Peabody, Winchester, Wilmington, Everett, Burlington, and into the metro core through Cambridge, Boston, Waltham, Newton, and Quincy. She knows the particular brickwork of the colonials near Lake Quannapowitt, the mid-century splits off North Avenue with their factory-built fireplaces, the triple-deckers in Everett with shared flues that require careful scheduling. She has worked on chimneys that vent into alleys in Cambridge and chimneys in Newton Centre where the liner specification has to satisfy a historic district review.
Level Two Chimney Wakefield is independently owned and operated. The local business is Corrine’s license, her trucks, her neighbors. What Level Two Chimney Co. contributes is the standard she agreed to work to, the documentation system that proves it, and the buying power that keeps her prices honest. The name refers to NFPA 211: Level 1 is a look with a flashlight. Level 2 puts a camera down the flue. Most companies charge for Level 1 and call it an inspection. We work to the standard our name claims.
Call (978) 861-1012 for a free written estimate. The price is named before the work begins. The evidence is archived when it ends.
Written by Corrine Halstead, Owner at Level Two Chimney Wakefield, serving Wakefield and surrounding communities since 2017.